Remembering humanity's triumph over a virus, 40 years on
GENEVA, May 9, (AFP) - As scientists scramble for a COVID-19 cure and vaccine, the world on Friday marked a pertinent anniversary: humanity's only true triumph over an infectious disease with its eradication of smallpox four decades ago.
On May 8, 1980, representatives of all World Health Organization member states gathered in Geneva and officially declared that the smallpox-causing variola virus had been relegated to the history books -- two centuries after the discovery of a vaccine.
“Its eradication stands as the greatest public health triumph in history,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a a virtual briefing.
“As the world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, humanity's victory over smallpox is a reminder of what is possible when nations come together to fight a common health threat,” he said.
Smallpox is a highly contagious disease that was transmitted via droplets during close contact with other people or contaminated objects, sparking high fever and a rash that left survivors disfigured and often blind. Many did not survive. The virus killed up to 30 percent of those infected and is estimated to have killed more than 300 million people in the 20th century alone.
The devastating disease was also the target of the world's first vaccine, discovered by scientist and physician Edward Jenner in 1796.
But the idea of fully eradicating smallpox only emerged nearly two centuries later, in 1958, amid a “momentary 'detente' between the Russians and Americans”, US epidemiologist Larry Brilliant told AFP.
At a time when smallpox remained endemic in more than 30 countries and was killing more than two million people annually, the Soviets proposed to show what global cooperation is good for and eradicate the disease. “America agreed,” Brilliant said, juxtaposing the leadership and international cooperation seen back then, to the “nationalism” colouring the current response.
Four decades later, as the world reels from the COVID-19 pandemic, decision-makers should look for inspiration to the tireless efforts to isolate those infected with smallpox and trace their contacts, said Rosamund Lewis, in charge of the smallpox file at the WHO. “We can learn a lot from smallpox for the COVID response,” she told AFP.
The WHO initially did not have the funds needed to get to work seriously on rooting out smallpox, but when it finally launched the global eradication campaign in 1967, experts “went door-to-door” to find infected people, Lewis said. She lamented that it had taken too long for many countries to realise the importance of this basic public health “weapon” against COVID-19, as it has spread worldwide, killing more than 260,000 people in a matter of months.
Experts stress that contact-tracing will be of vital importance until a vaccine against the new virus is developed and available.
Jenner came up with the idea for a smallpox vaccine after observing that milkmaids who previously caught cowpox did not catch smallpox, and used the fairly harmless virus to immunise against the far more deadly disease.
After a decade-long major push, the last known naturally occurring case of smallpox was seen in 1977. A year later, however, a British medical photographer working near a smallpox research lab became infected and died. Since then, a global debate has raged over whether or not variola virus samples should be destroyed.
Only two places in the world are authorised to keep samples of smallpox: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, and the State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology (VECTOR) in Russia. Washington and Moscow have long maintained the importance of retaining the samples for research purposes. Decades after its eradication, the threat of smallpox still looms large, with fears that the remaining virus samples could pose a bioterrorism threat.